By Any Other Name by Laura Jarratt Page A

that his name?’
    ‘Oh yes. He always hung out with Matt and his friends more than he did anyone in our year. It’s the farmer thing – they all tend to stick together.’
    Now I’m confused. Emo lives down my street, doesn’t he? He’s not a farmer. But I’m not asking Gemma any more questions about him or it’ll look weird.
    Our army guy yells at us for not paying attention so I forget about Emo and concentrate on not getting into more trouble.
    But on the way home later, I spot Emo shuffling down the street ahead of me, head down and listening to music as usual. I slow down and stay well behind, and instead of turning off down my usual
path, I carry on and follow him round the corner and down the street into a cul-de-sac. At the end of it, he turns on to a footpath.
    Once he’s out of sight, I sneak up to the top of the path. It snakes down the hill and out into the fields to rise up the next hill, where there’s a large white farmhouse surrounded
by metal barns. I decide for some unfathomable reason to wait and watch him. He heads towards the farm and, once he’s turned up the next hill, a black-and-white collie comes flying out of the
yard, over fields and down the path to meet him. It greets him in a whirl of jumps and excited yips.
    So Emo’s a farm boy. I never would have guessed that. I turn and walk slowly back up to my house. No, that’s totally unexpected.

I haven’t exactly been looking forward to Cam’s party all week and by the middle of Saturday afternoon I’m almost dreading it.
I’m in that state where I so wish I hadn’t said yes that part of me wants to text Fraser and say something’s come up. But the other part of me would be frustrated if I did because
it might turn out to be good in the end . . . maybe?
    Whatever.
    I am not happy. Not one bit.
    I’m trawling through my wardrobe trying to decide what to wear. I have of course extracted information from Gemma and Lucy on what they’re wearing and apparently Cam thought
it’d be good if the girls dress up and the boys dress down. There’s something about that girl that needles me enough to want to needle her. Maybe it’s the way she looked at me at
first, or perhaps it’s how the others act around her, as if she’s better than the rest of us.
    I finally decide on a slinky black number that shows my hair off to advantage. I try it on and check myself in the mirror. Not bad. Especially now my hair’s back to its proper ash-blonde
colour. And I think back to the first time I looked in the mirror after they dyed it brown.
    ‘It looks hideous,’ I told the hairdresser they’d sent over to do the job.
    She sniffed. ‘It looks different. That’s the point.’
    Mum doesn’t look impressed. ‘It’s only temporary though, darling. It’ll wash out. Just put up with it for a few weeks until we’ve moved on somewhere safer and then
you can let it fade.’
    ‘I still think it’d be better to cut it,’ the hairdresser told her.
    ‘Hasn’t she been through enough?’ Mum replied. ‘Let her keep something of herself.’
    At least she understands. Her shoulder-length glossy dark bob is now a muddy mouse-coloured crop that I know she hates. And I feel unaccountably guilty every time I look at her, as if all this
is my fault.
    I hang the black dress back in the wardrobe until later. Deciding what to wear calms me down and that means I can de-stress a bit more now by playing dolls with Katie. It’s awesome having
a little sister sometimes because you get to play with the stuff you’re supposed to be too old for now. I find that comforting – like eating egg with toast soldiers to dip, or Mum
running me a bath. Now and again, holding on to something from childhood grounds me. Especially since what happened last year. Nobody can make the monsters go away any more, but playing dolls with
Katie can help me forget for a while. The world feels simple and safe again.
    Fraser’s picking me up at eight so I have tea early